Firstly, let me just preface any remarks by sharing with you that this forum exists to provide medical information rather than medical advice. Although I am a retired physician, it is important for you to recognize that "second opinions" are strictly obtained within the practicing medical community and should not be sought through online sources.

Having made the statement, I'll also share here that you and your family can all relax. You're going to be just fine and you're in no danger whatsoever. The specific type of palpitation events that you are experiencing are arising from outside the heart, not from within. In persons under significant stress and/or anxiety, the central nervous system is chronically stimulated and this increases the opportunity for wayward evoked potentials, or nerve impulses, to be generated in a manner that is uncharacteristic.

In the case of benign heart palpitations, they actually arise along the pathway of the vagus nerve, one of the terminal endings of which happens to be the heart. Remember that your heart muscle is as much a muscle as it is an organ and like other muscle groups in the body, the heart's tissues will respond to electrical activity whether by the normal course of the heart's sinus pacers or whether extracardiac in nature, or in other words from a source outside the heart.

These specific palpitations are more akin to a simple muscle twitch than any type of cardiac arrhythmia. Furthermore, because of this origin, they are entirely incapable of inducing any type of cardiac event or transforming your heart's rhythm into some type of dangerous arrhythmia. Just as any eyelid muscle responds to a wayward impulse in the characteristic manner that most people have experienced from time to time, so it is with the heart muscle. It is only because of the stressed importance of the heart's function that people become influenced so quickly by irrational fears concerning the palpitation events. It is the fear of a perceived outcome that frightens persons experiencing the palpitations.

GI disturbances can also increase the potential for vagus nerve-induced palpitations to occur and this is because the vagus nerve innervates the GI tract as the pneumogastric nerve at that level. Realize that conditions as simple as excess gas which produces bloating can be sufficient enough to apply upward pressure against the diaphragmatic muscle and resulting in the increased potential for palpitations to subsequently manifest. A reduction in GI symptoms will quickly correspond to commensurate reduction in palpitation frequency and intensity.

You're going to be just fine and you're in no danger whatsoever. It should interest you to know that throughout medical history, there is not one recorded case of an individual coming to even the slightest harm as a consequence of palpitation events of the type you are experiencing. Not a single case.

Best regards,

Rutheford Rane, MD (ret.)